Members of Tyre King’s family console each other during a vigil for the 13-year-old last week in Columbus, Ohio.
Photograph: Jay LaPrete/AP

In one of Michael Bell’s earliest encounters with Tyre King, the sports coach had to sneak the boy into a Columbus, Ohio, recreation center to play basketball. The age limit for the play center was 12, and Tyre was 13.

“But, me, I was like, ‘Hey, I want to get these kids in here,’” said Bell, 43. “This is a safe haven. So, I’d sneak him in sometimes.”

Tyre, barely 5ft tall, just shy of 100lbs at 13 years old, was a bubbly kid who typically wore a wide smile, “just trying to figure himself out”, Bell said on Monday.

Tyre King. Photograph: AP

Last Wednesday, Tyre was killed by a Columbus police officer who was responding to a report of armed robbery. Police said King used a BB gun that resembled a genuine firearm to rob a Columbus resident of $10. When officers arrived, Tyre was spotted with two males who soon fled on foot. Moments later, police said, an officer fired “multiple” times after Tyre reached for a BB gun in his waistband. He was pronounced dead at a hospital soon after.

His death has gripped the Rust Belt city of 850,000, where residents protesting the shooting say uneven economic development has not benefited poorer neighborhoods like the one where Tyre lived.

The environment Tyre was raised in mirrors “so many young men” in Columbus, said Mark Stansberry, Tyre’s former hockey coach. “A lot of dysfunctionality,” he said, “but he was resilient.”

“He was … always coming in with that smile,” Stansberry said. “His smile was as big as the helmet.”

Last Wednesday, around 7.45pm, Columbus police said officers were dispatched to respond to reports of an armed robbery of a man for $10. The victim said a suspect was carrying a Ruger pistol.

“I’m not going to mess with it over $10,” the victim told the dispatcher. When police arrived, three males – including Tyre – matching the description of the suspects were spotted. Officers approached Tyre in an alley. Shortly after, police say Tyre reached for a BB gun from his waistband. It was then Mason, a nine-year veteran of the Columbus police division, shot King “multiple” times. Tyre was transferred to a local hospital and pronounced dead at 8.22pm.

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But reports and an independent autopsy released on Monday offered more clues of what transpired when police arrived. A friend with the teen at the time of the shooting, Demetrius Braxton, told the Columbus Dispatch that police ordered them to get down, “but my friend got up and ran … [and] when he ran, the cops shot him.”

The county coroner said on Monday that results of its autopsy on Tyre won’t be released for at least six weeks, pending the completion of toxicology tests. Columbus mayor Andrew Ginther promised a thorough investigation into the shooting, and has said the results will be turned over to a grand jury.

Conflicting reports from a witness and friend of Tyre, along with an independent medical examiner’s autopsy released by the child’s family on Monday, have stoked concerns from residents and activists about law enforcement in the city.

“The Columbus police department, the City of Columbus and most importantly Tyre King and his family deserve the benefit of an investigation from a law enforcement agency that has no direct impact from the outcome of that investigation,” the family said in a statement.

‘Safe for whom?’

The area where Tyre was killed is a “historic black community” that has witnessed a rise in investment over the last several years, said Tammy Fournier-Alsaada, an organizer with the People’s Justice Project and lifelong resident of Columbus.

“You see historic buildings; the beauty and architecture in any one of these houses around here will blow your mind,” Fournier-Alsaada, 55, said during a drive around the neighborhood on Sunday. Fixtures by the local artist Ahmina Robinson, who passed away last year, are situated around the area, Fournier-Alsaada said, “to remind people of the history of what this looked like when black folks” lived there.

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But as the city has reinvested in the area, police have deployed what’s known as the city’s Summer Safety Initiative to patrol the streets, she said, where officers “terrorize, arrest, harass” people.

“There are many cases [stemming from the initiative] where police have been investigated and some have been kicked off the force for their tactics,” Fournier-Alsaada said. Indeed, in June, police officers in the initiative shot and killed 23-year-old Henry Green, near the high school attended by Tyre.

With both shootings occurring in a span of a few months, activists said they were stunned to hear Mayor Ginther proclaim Columbus is one of the safest major cities in the US.

“A lot of activists are asking: ‘Well, safe for whom?’” said Amber Evans, 26, also an organizer with the People’s Justice Project. “Because it doesn’t feel safe for kids with toy guns, for little black boys.”

Tyre’s death was the 13th police shooting in Columbus this year, the city’s police chief said last week, and that includes five fatalities. The city ranks 27th in major cities for violent crime, according to FBI data, and 21st for homicides. Still, Evans said, the semblance of safety and access to opportunity isn’t shared across the city’s residents.

“It’s this idea that Columbus is this place where we have low crime and we have affordable housing and job opportunities, but all of those things are only afforded to the few, and that few does include people of color,” she said.

At the rally on Monday, Evans and Fournier-Alsaada’s group released a list of demands to the city’s mayor, including a call to let residents shape the Summer Safety Initiative, new trauma service programs in areas affected by violence, and new community-policing initiatives.

Standing nearby, Larry Robertson, a local musician, reflected on how his former hometown of Cleveland was rankled by the death of Tamir Rice, who was killed by police while carrying a pellet gun in a city park at 12 years old.

“Being from Cleveland with Tamir, that really upset me,” he said, adding: “Then with it happening again here within a couple years. I wasn’t even over that, per se.”

The fact Tyre died at 13 years old, Robertson said, shook him.

“If I was to die today, I’ve had a chance to live life,” he said. “I’ve made memories, I’ve been in love, I’ve known what it feels like to have small successes. Traveled a little bit. Thirteen, I didn’t know shit. I didn’t experience anything, I didn’t get out of my neighborhood which was in the inner city. I hadn’t had a chance to make my mistakes and learn from them.”

Brian Thompson, 37, traveled to the rally from his hometown of Akron, Ohio. A father of twin boys who are 10, the death of Tyre has been unnerving and “scary”, Thompson said. Last week, he was in a sporting goods store when one of his children asked if he could buy a paintball gun. The answer was simple.

“I told him no, you can’t have any guns,” he said. “I can’t afford for you to have a gun. Our kids can’t play with toy guns.”